System and apparatus for automatic data collection



May 12, 1970 SYSTEM AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIC DATA COLLECTION Filed Dec. 31, 1959 A. C. REYNOLDS, JR., ETAL 18 Sheets-Sheet 1 TIC, 1

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United States Patent 3,512,139 SYSTEM AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATIC DATA COLLECTION Andrew C. Reynolds, Jr., Waterbury, John F. Carragan, Woodbury, and George J. Yagusic, Watertown, Conn., assignors, by mesne assignments, to Control Data Corporation, Minneapolis, Minn., a corporation of Minnesota Filed Dec. 31, 1959, Ser. No. 863,227 Int. Cl. Gllb 13/00; G06f 1/00, 7/00 US. Cl. 340172.5 37 Claims This invention relates to a system for automatic data communication and collection, and a central receiverrecorder for such a system. More particularly, the invention relates to an on line, or real time, system for use in collecting, sorting, collating, and transmitting data from a plurality of remote station transmitters to a central ofiice receiver and recorder.

The automatic communication system of the present invention may be used, for example, in factories where a plurality of data transmitters may be installed in different areas, shops, or departments, for transmission of manufacturing data to the central receiver-recorder of the invention which may be located in a central accounting ofiice. Such data may include: numbers of units manufactured on particular machines; designated job orders filled by machine operators; identity and hourly wage rates of the machine operators; total time required for each operation, etc. Alternatively, the apparatus of the invention may be used in warehouses and distribution centers for collection of order receipt and delivery time information for inventory control purposes, or in department stores for automatic collection of point of origin sales data, etc.

In a large factory, for example, there is at present a great deal of paper work required to be done in the various shops and departments, including such handwritten reports as time tickets for payroll entries, production and inventory control records, cost accounting, quality control inspection and scheduling reports, etc. For automatic ce'ntral office computing, this mass of data now has to be individually punched into cards by manual operations, and the punched cards have to be verified by human operators before they can be fed to tabulating or computer apparatus. Various systems which have heretofore been suggested for expediting the How of this information into the central oflice have included the use of closed circuit television, which introduces the added problem of human error in reading the data from the TV screen, and the use of intercommunicating telephone circuits, which frequently results in error and misunderstanding of the verbally-relayed information. In these prior art systems, the multiplicity of personnel involved results in divided responsibility, which is quite undesirable.

The principle of the data transmission and collection system of the present invention is to capture the required information at the point of origin, select, sort, and collate it automatically and substantially instantaneously, and then to transmit infallibly the desired data to a central receiver-recorder where it is permanently punched into tape or recorded on some other common language medium which can be fed directly into an automatic computer without the further intervention of possible human error.

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In the copending application of A. C. Reynolds, Jr., et al., Ser. No. 841,926 filed Sept. 21, 1959, and entitled Data Transmission Apparatus which is assigned to the same assignee as the present application, there is disclosed the apparatus and circuitry of a data transmitter for the system of the present invention, including data card handling and reading apparatus, apparatus for encoding fixed and variable input information, and scanner and control circuits for such apparatus. The present application dis closes some controls of the data transmitter of the present invention not shown in the above-identified application, which controls are used for intercommunication between the central receiver-recorder and the data transmitters in the system of the invention. This application also discloses and claims a preferred embodiment of a central receiver-recorder for the system of the invention.

An important feature of the invention is the transmission of information set into the data transmitters at any time in the form of a plurality of data cards, manually adjustable dials, and automatic telemetry signals over a plurality of data transmission channels equal in number to the number of code channels on the data cards.

Another feature of the invention is the initiation of transmission, selection and operation of a ready transmitter by means of a multiple conductor, coded search line system, using fewer search conductors than there are numbers of transmitters in the system.

A further feature of the invention is provision for the location and selection of another transmitter, which is ready to transmit during the progress of recording a transmission from a previously selected transmitter, thereby eliminating switching delays at the central office.

Another feature is the translation of the data received at the central receiver-recorder into a different code for a continuous recording medium, illustratively record tape, having either a greater or lesser number of channels than the data cards, and including a parity check channel.

Still another feature of the invention is the generation at the central receiver-recorder of space symbols to be recorded on the continuous medium when fields containing no symbols occur in a message.

A further feature is the provision of a synchronous shift register or buffer storage unit which synchronizes the incoming data characters to the recording rate of the continuous medium recorder.

A still further feature of the invention is a novel low voltage monitoring circuit which insures that no data will be lost during periods of fluctuating line voltage.

Still another feature of the invention is the continuous automatic resetting of all bistable elements of the receiver-recorder during periods when no message is being received.

A further feature of the invention is the provision at the central receiver-recorder for recording a central office message including instantaneous time, date, and additional preselected characters which may be recorded on the continuous medium either prior to or subsequently to recording of the received transmitter messages.

A still further important feature of the invention is the automatic transmission from the remote transmitters of a number corresponding to the total number of charactors in each message being transmitted, and apparatus at the central receiver-recorder for comparing this number with the number of characters actually received.

Other features of the invention will become apparent from consideration of the following specification.

In the art of machine data handling and data processing, commonly referred to as automatic computing, one of the most serious problems has long been to find rapid and accurate means for feeding input information into the available high speed data processing equipment. While known types of electronic computers are capable of operating upon great quantities of data very rapidly, and can solve complex problems and record accurate answers very quickly, much time and human effort is required to assemble, sort, collate, compile, and insert the input data which is the information that the big computers are adapted to operate upon. The lab-or of skilled and semiskilled persons, who may be engaged for many hours or days in preparing the required input data, is not only costly and susceptible of human error but by the time input media is prepared for the computer the usefulness of the data may be lost or greatly impaired.

It is to these problems of facilitating, expediting, and economizing on the input of statistical data into automatic data processing systems, and to assuring greater accuracy of such information, that the present invention is broadly directed.

In the applications of Curtis Hillyer, Ser. No. 556,120 filed Dec. 29, 1955 entitled Automatic Information Transmission" and Ser. No. 686,070 filed Sept. 25, 1957 entitled Data Transmission Apparatus, which applications are assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, there is disclosed a system and apparatus for automatic information transmission and collecting comprising a plurality of data transmitters connected to a central receiver-recorder. The system of the present invention is an improvement in the system disclosed in the above-identified Hillyer applications.

In order to manufacture a commercially acceptable automatic data collection system, many problems must be solved. For example, the message recorded at the central receiver-recorder must be extremely accurate and error free since the recording is made on a continuous medium which is adapted to be directly fed into a computer without the intervention of further verification. On the other hand, it is important that the message be transmitted to the central receiver-recorder in a very short period of time so that other transmitters connected to the central receiver-recorder which are ready to transmit their message will not have to wait very long, thus various commonly known forms of redundant transmission of information cannot be used.

The cable that connects the data transmitters to the central receiver-recorder must have a minimum number of conductors to transmit the information and to transmit various control signals, yet reduction of the number of conductors must not unduly increase the complexity of the data transmitters or the central receiver-recorder. In particular, since a plurality of data transmitters will ordinarily be connected to a single central receiver-recorder, in order to insure minimum system cost the data transmitters must be kept as simple as possible.

Since a data transmitter, in a properly designated system, may be much less complex and costly than a central receiver-recorder, it becomes important to maximize the number of transmitters which may be connected to one receiver-recorder. This means that the time required for transmission and the necessary interval between messages must be reduced to a minimum. When this is done additional transmitters may be connected to a single central receiver-recorder without increasing the waiting time for a ready transmitter during peak loading periods. Furthermore, the connection of each transmitter to the cable should be kept as simple as possible. Ideally the system should be completely parallel, and therefore each transmitter should be effectively connected to each conductor of the cable.

The common cable used in the system of the present invention will necessarily be in proximity to electrical noise generators, for example, heavy electrical machinery in factories. The system must, therefore, have a very high degree of discrimination between random interference noise signals and the information signals being transmitted from the data transmitters. As previously stated, since time is of the essence in the system, various forms of redundant transmission in time cannot be used. Other means had to be found which would assure that the central receiver-recorder be free from various transient and noise signals on the data transmission lines.

In order to minimize further the number of conductors required in the common cable, it is desirable that all information transmitted to the central receiver-recorder from the remote data transmitters be transmitted in a common language that is in one particular code. Thus the information from data cards, variable dials, telemetering inputs, special characters, etc., should all arrive at the central receiver-recorder in the same code; yet this form of transmission must not unduly complicate the apparatus at the data transmitters. Any translation from one code to another should therefore take place at the central receiver-recorder.

As discussed in the above identified application of Andrew Craig Reynolds, Jr., et al., the simplest method of achieving this objective is to transmit all the data from each data transmitter in the code of the data cards. Means must then be provided at the central receiver-recorder for translating this code into the common language code adapted for recording on the continuous medium chosen as the output of the central receiver-recorder.

Also, since in the present state of the art it is possible to provide continuous medium recorders having much higher clock rates (at which characters may be recorded) than the rate at which characters may be transmitted from the data transmitters; and since available continuous medium recorders are generally demand devices, that is, they request a character when they are ready to record a character; the incoming characters from the data transmitters of the invention are temporarily stored in a buffer storage and synchronized with the clock rate of the continuous medium recorder prior to their being recorded. A buffer storage unit for this purpose accepts characters as they are received from the data transmitters and supplies characters for recording to the continuous recorder upon request. Furthermore, since the rate at which characters are transmitted from the data transmitters may vary from the normal average rate, due to variations in line voltage at the data transmitters, or differences in hole spacing and hole size on the data cards, the buffer storage unit of the invention must be able to store enough characters prior to recording so that no characters are lost, and yet it is desirable that the storage means he of minimum size in order to minimize cost.

A central receiver-recorder for an automatic data collection system of this nature must, for some users thereof, be able to supply characters for recording on the continuous medium in the absence of received characters from the data transmitters. That is, for example, many of the users of such a data system will not wish to punch a character on their data cards between fields of data characters which they wish to have recorded on the continuous medium with space characters inserted therebetween. In this case, the central receiver-recorder must be adapted to provide the proper number of space characters for the continuous medium recorder between receipt of the data characters as read from the data cards. As the rate of transmission from the data transmitters varies, the central receiver-recorder must be able to recognize the early or late receipt of a data character so that no space character will be improperly recorded by the continuous medium recorder.

Since many computing machines using the continuous medium records produced by central receiver'recorders are provided with a parity monitoring means for detect- 

1. AN AUTOMATIC DATA COLLECTION AND RECORDING SYSTEM COMPRISING IN COMBINATION, A CENTRAL OFFICE, A PLURALITY OF OUTLYING STATIONS, A COMMON MULTICIRCUIT COMMUNICATION CHANNEL CONNECTED TO EACH OF SAID OUTLYING STATIONS AND TO SAID CENTRAL OFFICE, MEANS AT EACH STATION FOR SENDING A CALLING SIGNAL OVER SAID COMMUNICATION CHANNEL TO SAID CENTRAL OFFICE, STATION SELECTION MEANS AT SAID CENTRAL OFFICE RESPONSIVE TO RECEIPT THEREAT OF A CALLING SIGNAL FROM ANY OF SAID OUTLYING STATIONS TO SELECT A CALLING STATION AND TO INITIATE AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION FROM THE SELECTED CALLING STATION TO THE CENTRAL OFFICE, AND MEANS INCLUDING SAID SELECTION MEANS FOR SELECTIVELY ENGAGING ANOTHER CALLING STATION WHILE RECEIVING AND RECORDING AT SAID CENTRAL OFFICE A TRANSMISSION FROM A PREVIOUSLY SELECTED CALLING STATION AND PREPARING SAID OTHER CALLING STATION FOR IMMEDIATE TRANSMISSION OF DATA TO SAID CENTRAL OFFICE UPON TERMINATION OF DATA TRANSMISSION BY SAID PREVIOUSLY SELECTED CALLING STATION. 